“Good news of long awaited event will arrive soon.” This was the fortune in my cookie at dinner tonight. Thirty minutes later, on my way home from the restaurant I received an invitation to spend the weekend with a friend, for this I have waited two months.
What can be said of waiting? Waiting is a practice that causes stress. I focus so strongly on the desired event and become impatient for its arrival. I no longer enjoy the moment I am living because my focus in on the future. For this reason, I don’t want to wait. I want it now. I am an instant gratification type person. I send a text out and within 20 seconds am anxious if I haven’t yet received a response. I pick up my phone several times within the first minute to check for messages. Before long I am creating elaborate stories in my head of reasons for my text to be ignored. Seldom are my stories reasonable. Most often the blame falls on me and something I must have done to alienate the message sender.
It’s not just the simple things that I expect to happen quickly. Relationships should develop and take form almost before they have even begun. If things aren’t progressing quickly enough to suit me, I assume they aren’t meant to be and I begin to imagine the relationship falling apart and ending. What does that say about me?
Insecurity is the breeding ground for anxiety and time only serves to heighten the senses. Time and space create an atmosphere conducive to questions and doubts when the Self is not sure. Ego slips in reminding us of past problems and suggesting to us future failures. Before long we are bogged down in the mire of self-doubt, unable to sit comfortably in what is Now.
Taking a deep breath and sitting with whatever is happening in my life is a lesson I am beginning to learn, a gift to my Self.
It’s more than patience.
It is an inner knowing, a confidence, a reassuring state of contentment.
It is peace.
To remind my Self that “right Now, in this moment, I am okay” is my new mantra.
I have everything I need within me right now.
There is no need for worry or for waiting.
If we accept each moment for itself, the future will unfold as it is meant to be.
This will happen whether we are anxious or accepting.
The difference is how we experience the moment.
Anxiety creates stress.
Acceptance brings peace.
Being Mindfully Me 